


A Tale Of The Right Thing; When The Blood On The Ice Is Your Own

by ShamanOfHedon



Series: The Right Thing [6]
Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-12
Updated: 2018-03-12
Packaged: 2019-03-30 05:00:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13943124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShamanOfHedon/pseuds/ShamanOfHedon
Summary: Marie comes to an old cold city to find someone dear. But fate punishes those who stray from it's designs...





	A Tale Of The Right Thing; When The Blood On The Ice Is Your Own

**Author's Note:**

> A request from a friend to retell the story of the Blood On The Ice quest from Skyrim through the eyes of Marie.

Marie was melancholy as she walked through the streets of Windhelm, the old cobbled stone beneath her feet. The Greybeards wanted her to go traipsing after some dead man's horn to prove she was what they clearly already knew she was, but she had no intention of humouring a gaggle of inept old men with no concept of necessity. They babbled at her about noble pacifist goals, but not a single one of them understood what the world was like. She had spent 4 centuries trying to be a pacifist and avoid conflict, but she knew if she avoided any and all conflict innocents die. She would get to their foolish little test eventually, but she had other plans for now.

She came to Windhelm to check in on someone. Centuries ago, during her first stint in the Imperial prison, before she was shipped off to Vvardenfell, she had been raped by several of the corrupt guards that served under Audens Avidius. The rapes resulted in a child, who was quietly taken away and adopted far from the Imperial city to cover up the crimes of the guards. Years later, after she and Martin Septim had ended the Oblivion crisis and her father Alastair had convinced her to take the throne, Marie put her blades to work tracking down that child, her son. It took them some time, and a lot of forceful interviews with all those now disgraced and imprisoned guards, but the Blades found the boy. He was 12 when they tracked him down, living happily with a farming family in Skyrim.

With a heavy heart, Marie decided her son was happy and even being his true mother it would be cruel to rip him away from the only family he had ever known, let alone tell him how he was conceived, and so she selected a small cadre of Blades and gave them a permanent secret assignment. They were to break off away from the Blades and form a small order unto themselves, meant solely to watch over the boy and his family, and any children he might someday have. They were to operate in complete secrecy known only to her, answering only to her, recruiting their own replacements and training them for this one sole purpose. They were the only blades let in on her immortality and her plan to fake her death and leave the throne behind. Over the centuries, she checked in with them once a decade for reports on her son and his progeny.

So now she was in Windhelm, having spoken to the current iteration of the unit. She had missed a few decades because of the Great War with the Thalmor, and was saddened to learn that her great great grandchildren were all killed in the war, leaving but one descendant left alive. Her great great great granddaughter Susanna. And so Marie was on her way to Candlehearth Hall, to take a room and observe her last surviving family.

She sat upstairs nursing some mead, quietly observing a warm, lighthearted young woman who flitted around the tavern serving the customers, flirting for tips, and fearlessly challenging the racist Nord regulars. She had earned the nickname "the Wicked", for both of these reasons, but she was anything but. Over the few weeks Marie quietly watched her, she was seen sneaking leftovers from the tavern to the city's beggars, spent most of her free time either hanging out with the Dunmer in the Gray Quarter mocking the asshole Nords, or helping the Argonians on the docks. Her supposed wickedness was solely a label based on her not towing the line of how Windhelm expected it's citizens to act.

Marie made it a point to sit quietly and unnoticed in a far corner and stay out of Susanna's way. All she wanted was to see her only living grandchild thrive and be happy. She even stealthily snuck around the tavern of the Hall whenever no one was looking and left triple tips on the tables for her. For three weeks she watched and tipped and smiled seeing her grandchild happy.

Then, after nigh a month of this, Marie was sitting quietly reading a book in her quiet corner table when Susanna herself sat down with her, smirking.

"I'm sorry," Marie said, startled. "Do you need my table for another customer?"

"Nah," Susanna replied. "I just got tired of waiting for you to actually talk to me so I'm talking to you."

Flustered, Marie played dumb.

"I don't know what you mean," Marie said. "I just come here to drink and read."

"And follow me around town," Susanna replied with a smirk, "and leave better tips than these drunken racist louts ever do on all my tables, and watch me when you think I'm not looking. Oh and look pretty much exactly like my ma and gran."

Marie put her book down and just stared at the table, shamed.

"You know?" she asked.

"Oh pick your chin up," Susanna replied. "We've known about you for around a century now."

"How?" Marie asked, looking up with confusion.

"Well," Susanna began, "about 100 years back, give or take a decade, one of your little observers was following my grandfather Elgin on a hunting trip. He was young and newly minted in your little order, and was so intent on observing Granpa Elgin that he failed to notice the wolves creeping up on him. Elgin saved him, took him to a nearby healer, and got him some treatment. But while the lad was unconscious he was curious about the copious notes and journals he had on him, so Elgin read through him and learned the whole sad story. He never let the lad in on his discovery though so your observers never knew we knew. But since then we were able to spot them watching, and we started hoping one day our elder who doesn't die might finally get over herself and actually say hello to the grandkids."

"I see," Marie said. "So this entire past month..."

"Oh I spotted you the first night you walked in Gran," Susanna replied. "You're not exactly a hard look to recognize. A one eyed Breton woman with scars and white hair who acts impossibly old while looking like a 19 year old? Yeah I knew who you were right away."

"I... I'm sorry then," Marie said, "for not saying anything. I've always thought it best I stay out of your lives. I attract bad things and you were all safer without me."

"Well," Susanna smirked, "given how my parents and brothers died in the war without you around, I'm pretty sure that bad things can and do happen with r without you. But so do good things. So get the Oblivion over yourself Gran. You're my only family now. Don't you think maybe it's time to stop being a stubborn old ghost in the corner and just be part of my life?"

Tears started streaming down Marie's cheeks.

"Yes," she said. "I'd like that. I would very much like that."

The two stood up and hugged, both in tears. After so long thinking her descendants would be better not knowing about her, Marie was grateful to hold family in her arms and finally not feel alone in the world. And after BEING alone in the world after losing her family to the war, Susanna was grateful that the Ghost Grandmother of her family had finally stopped hiding.

For the next two months they spent all Susanna's free time together, talking, laughing, learning about each other. They reveled in being with family again, and bonded as deeply as one ever can. Marie was less grandmother and becoming more a mother to Susanna. For the first time in centuries, Marie was genuinely happy, and content to just stay in Windhelm with her progeny.

And then, one cold winter night, the whole city blanketed in snow and ice, Marie waited at her table alone, and worried, because Susanna wasn't there. She missed her shift, and Nils, the cook, had no idea where she was. Marie left Candlehearth to track her down, and as she walked the cold dark streets she heard screams, coming from the small graveyard outside the Temple of Talos. With a sick feeling in her gut and a lump in her throat, Marie ran full steam to the screams, and found a small crowd gathered around a body atop a cairn. her lip trembling, Marie pushed through the crowd, and upon reaching the body, froze. It was bloody. It was mutilated. It was borderline unrecognizable as being a human body. It even had entire parts missing. And it was very clearly Susanna.

And Marie fell to her knees. And Marie screamed.

It began to rain, as city guards erected a covering over the body to protect evidence. Helgird, the temple priestess, was waiting for the guards to finish so she could conduct her examination of the body, and she knelt beside Marie, offering her comfort. Marie choked out guttural sobs, clutching snow and mud in her hands as she tried to calm her breathing.

"I'm sorry dearie," Helgrid said. "Did you know her?"

"She was my gr..." Marie began, then paused. Once she had finally calmed her breathing and composed herself, she continued. "She was family. The only family I had left. My last living relative. We had just reconnected."

"My condolences dearie," Helgrid replied. "That's a terrible thing to bear."

Marie composed herself further and stood up. She turned to Helgrid.

"Who did this?" she asked.

"Well," Helgrid began, "Calixto and Silda there saw a hooded robed man flee the scene, but poor Susanna was dead when they got here. I think they interrupted the Butcher."

"The Butcher?" Marie asked.

"Yes dearie," Helgrid replied. "The city watch downplay it, but we have a serial murderer here in Windhelm. Susanna is his 5th victim. Every 4 months like clockwork, he kills a young woman at night when the streets are mostly empty, and takes body parts like a butcher flaying his cattle. So we call him the Butcher. He was interrupted this time though, as you can see."

Helgrid pointed to the ground beside the cairn, where the killer had dropped the body parts he had removed from Susanna.

"Which makes me fear," she continued, "that he might strike again FAR sooner than 4 months."

"Thank you," Marie said, and turned to one of the guards.

"Who do I talk to about helping in the investigation?" Marie asked the guard.

"You want to help?" the guard asked. "Why?"

"Because she was family," Marie replied.

"Then talk to Ulfric's steward Jorleif," the guard replied. "He's in charge of this grisly business."

Marie thanked the guard, and was about to head to Ulfric's palace, but paused when she noticed a blood trail, still fresh. Still warm enough to have slightly melted the snow and ice it was on. With the guards still distracted by trying to protect the crime scene, and knowing the rain would soon wash this trail away, Marie followed it, up through the wealthy peoples' section of the city, until she came to the securely locked door of a mansion. She looked around and found a nameplate, "Hjerim".

With that she sought out Jorleif. She found him sitting at the Jarl's longtable, looking exasperated and worn out, trying to hide his annoyance at the conversation between Ulfric and his generals about the war. Marie ignored Ulfric entirely. She walked straight to Jorleif.

"I want to help with the Butcher investigation," she said abruptly. "I followed a blood trail to a locked manor called Hjerim. The man just murdered my only living family. I want to be the one who brings him down."

"And why," Jorleif replied, "should I expect a woman to do what my guards have failed to do?"

Marie smirked at him, stood up, turned to a nearby stuffed bear, and turned her head back to Jorleif just long enough to wink. Then she turned back to the bear.

"FUS."

The bear imploded. Everyone in the palace hall stopped, even Ulfric. And Ulfric said absolutely nothing, because it took HIM two decades to learn that one single thu'um, the very thu'um he used to murder King Toreig like a coward. The woman he saw using it just now was never at High Hrothgar with him and looked barely an adult. The only way this waif could know the Thu'um so fluidly was if she was Dragonborn. And Ulfric, coward he truly was, knew better than to pick a fight with an actual Dragonborn. So he quietly motioned to his guards to steer clear as the woman stepped back towards Jorleif. Jorleif looked at him desperately, and Ulfric just nodded at him.

"I guess you've got the job," Jorleif said with a sigh. He fished through his pouch and found the key to Hjerim and asked Marie to report any breaks in the case to him.

Shortly thereafter, Marie unlocked the door of the manor, and stepped inside. It was a mess. There were dried blood stains on the floor, as the last victim had been killed here in what was then her own home. Her parents had most of the furniture removed and surrendered the home to the city, wanting nothing more to do with it. Yet now 4 months after Friga Shatter-Shield's murder, there were still lit candles all over the place. The killer was no longer here. Marie didn't know if it was because he suspected she'd find a way in after following the blood on the ice, or if he just finished whatever his business here was. 

Marie searched in silence, her one good eye keenly observing every minute detail. When she saw bloody muddy footprints seem to disappear into an apparently empty closet, she investigated the closet itself until she found a small hidden switch, and found herself in a secret room. And what she found there was horrifying. The room was full of necromancy tools, black soul gems, and the fetid rotting bodyparts taken from the past victims. They were laid out as if trying to put a human body together. The only pieces missing were the ones the Butcher tried to take from Susanna. And atop a nearby table was a small amulet, in the shape of a skull. Marie took the amulet and returned to Jorleif.

"Well well," Jorleif said with some surprise. "It looks like you might just be what I needed after all."

"Clearly,: Marie said sternly.

"Yes, well," Jorleif mumbled. "In any event, the butcher is clearly into Necromancy. I suggest you take this amulet to Calixto. He runs a strange silly little museum of oddities. He might know what this is."

Shortly thereafter Marie arrived at Calixto's museum, and upon seeing the grey bearded middle aged Nord, her back went up. She remembered seeing him at the crime scene, and Helgrid saying he had claimed to have witnessed the murder, but now thinking back in a far calmer state of mind, she remembered he was deeply out of breath as he was talking with one of the guards, as if he had just been running. As he greeted her like some sort of huckster salesman, she quirked a brow and interrupted him.

"I'm sorry," she said, "but I honestly have no interest in your museum. I'm here investigating the murders. Jorleif said you might know something about this strange little pendant I found in Hjerim. It was surrounded by some very grisly things, and I found journals that would indicate it belongs to the Butcher. He seems to be seeking specific body parts to create an abomination."

Calixto took the amulet from Marie, and she noticed several micro-expressions from him that few not her age would have seen or understood, the very slightest of gulps, the tiniest twitch of an angry eyebrow. But she kept her observations to herself for now, deciding to just observe him.

"Well," Calixto blustered, "it's an ornamental piece, possibly of Thalmor origin. Beyond that it doesn't have any meaning I know of, though I'm quite sure I saw Wuunferth wear one just like it. If you like I'll buy this from you and take it off your hands. It would make a lovely addition to my museum."

"Wuunferth?" Marie asked.

"Yes the Court Mage," Calixto replied. "The 'Unliving' they call him. Several distasteful rumours about his proclivities. You ought to go talk to him."

Marie narrowed her eyes at him, as he offered her the fake smile of a salesman, with a veneer of hate and anger hiding behind his eyes. She smiled back at him.

"No thank you," she said. "The amulet is evidence. Perhaps after I find the killer. If you'll excuse me, I think I'll go talk to Wuunferth."

Wuunferth was mixing some potions in his room at the palace when the amulet landed on his alchemy table. He turned to look at it and frowned.

"Where did you get this vile thing young lady?" he asked, picking it up and looking to Marie.

"I found it in what turned out to be the Butcher's lair," she replied. "Calixto claims it's nothing important but that he saw you wearing one. I assume that was a lie?"

"It certainly was," Wuulferth huffed. n"This is a Necromancer's amulet. I have enough trouble dispelling the filthy lies the rumourmongers tell about me to begin with, I certainly wouldn't fuel them by wearing such a foul thing."

"I thought as much," Marie said. "Calixto was all too 'helpful'. So eagar to dismiss the amulet as unimportant, so quick to offer you up as the perfect suspect. Plus the almost imperceptible anger he kept hidden when I called the Butcher's work an abomination. I am fairly certain HE is the Butcher."

"Then why did you still come to me?" Wuulferth asked.

"To confirm my hunch," Marie replied. "the problem is that the evidence points to you and all I have to accuse him IS my instinct. Jorleif wouldn't lift a finger on Calixto without evidence. He managed to flee the scene of Susanna's murder, ditch his cloak, and circle back to it to be a witness. He appears to be innocent to anyone not as... observant as I am. And he's set you up very nicely. And if you're willing, I'd very much like to use that against him."

"What are you suggesting?" Wullferth asked.

"Come," Marie said. "Let's you and I go talk to Jorleif. I have a plan.

The next day word spread throughout the city that Wuulferth had been jailed under suspicion of being the Butcher. And Marie watched Calixto's museum in secret. Sure enough, after four nights, Calixto snuck from his home in a hooded cloak, weilding an embalming knife, and slipping quietly through the streets. Marie followed him from the rooftops, leaping from roof to roof and keeping him in sight. Soon he was in the marketplace, approaching a lone woman warming her hands by the fire near the smith's forge. As he drew up behind the woman and readied his knife, a slightly whistling sound broke the air behind him, and he cried out as an arrow pierced ech of he calves from behind. Marie leapt down from the rooftop behind him, and the woman at the fire turned and held a sword to his throat. Guards came out of hiding, as did Jorleif, Wuulferth, and the Shattershield family.

"What? H-How?" Calixto stammered.

"Marie came to me," Jorleif said, "and with Wuulferth she explained her theory as opposed to the evidence. She asked me to trust her. We pretended to arrest Wuulferth and Marie began watching you at night, knowing you'd soon feel safe enough with Wuulferth in prison to go seek the final pieces you needed to create your monstrosity. Every night, guards were told to watch for her to be following a man in a hooded cloak. Upon seeing exactly that, a guard came to fetch Wullferth and I, plus the parents of your prior victim, and wait near the marketplace, where you would find the only potential target on the streets tonight. We all watched you try to kill her before Marie shot your legs. There is NO doubt left who the butcher really is."

"No..." Calixto muttered. Marie reached out for the hooded woman holding the sword at Calixto's throat, who took her hood off and revealed herself to be Nilsine Shatter-Shield, the twin sister of Calixto's last victim before Susanna. As guards took over holding Calixto at bay, Nilsine hugged Marie tightly.

"Thank you Miss Marie," she said in happy tears, "for letting me be a part of bring my sister's killer to justice."

"Thank you in kind," Marie replied, "for granting my family the same justice by risking your own life."

Wuulferth approached Calixto and stood over him in angry annoyance.

"I can understand you trying to cast aspersions on me," he said, "given all the distasteful rumours, it made sense. But what could POSSIBLY have been so important about your vile experiments that they were worth snuffing out the lives of five young women like they were nothing?"

"Experiment?" Calixto spat angrily. "EXPERIMENT? You pompous preening wizard! It was no 'experiment'. I was going to bring my sister back to life! And her life trumps ANYONE else's to me! I almost had her back! You wretched fools have ruined everything!"

Marie growled audibly, and took Calixto by his neck, lifting him high in the air.

"So because of the pain you feel having lost your sister," she said in the same low, quiet, eerily calm voice she used in Valenwood as a child, "you felt justified in inflicting that very same pain on people who have done NOTHING to you?"

"I.... I...." Calixto stammered, unable to think of anything to say in answer to that. Marie tossed him at the feet of Nilsine and her parents.

"I assume," she asked Jorleif, "that since he was both caught red-handed AND he confessed that his guilt is beyond question?"

"Indeed," Jorleif replied. "As the Steward of Windhelm it is within my authority based on all of this to sentence him to death."

Marie nodded and turned towards Nilsine's mother, Tova, and gave her Calixto's embalming knife.

"You lost your child before I lost mine," she said. "As much as I would relish gutting the bastard, I believe you have precedence should you wish to take it."

Tova took the knife and stared at it. With tears in her eyes she handed it back.

"Thank you," she said, her voice trembling, "but unlike you, I still have family. Killing him won't bring Friga back. I can take solace, both in still having Nilsine and my husband, and in knowing no one else will lose a daughter to this monster. You have lost your only family. He wronged you much worse. If I lost both my children I do not think I could go on living. His life is yours."

Marie nodded and tossed the knife down, and turned to Calixto. 

"You may all wish to stand back," she said. Everyone did so. Once they were far enough back, Marie bent over to look Calixto dead in the eye, and said simply "Burn."

With that, she set him on fire, and everyone watched as he died engulfed in flames.When his charred corpse finally burned out, a few guards carried it outside of the city to dump unceremoniously in the river. Marie just stood there. After the Shatter-Shields all hugged her and left, and Wuulferth and the rest of the guards left also, only Marie and Jorleif remained.

"It's done with now," he said. "The daughters of Windhelm will be safe now. You've done the city a great service. There's a reward if you-"

"No," she said, cutting him off.

"I see," he said. "I suppose reward wasn't your motivation indeed. It was kind of you to offer the kill to Tova."

"It was..." Marie said hesitantly, "the right thing. To end a very very wrong thing."

"Yes well," Jorleif replied, "What will you do now?"

"Bury my granddaughter," she replied, no longer caring about being careful with details, "and then go stop avoiding my fate."

With that, Marie left for the temple, conducted burial rights with Helgrid, and left Windhelm. She returned to the home she had been granted in Whiterun, to a smiling Lydia.

"I was beginning to wonder if I'd ever see you again," Lydia said. "It's been almost 4 months! What happened in Windhelm?"

"What always happens Burden," she said sadly. "I'd rather not talk about it. Gather your gear. We're going to go find that stupid horn."

Lydia abruptly hugged Marie, just holding her, not prying for details but knowing something was very wrong. Marie flinched at first, then just melted into her friend's arms, sobbing. Lydia just held her as she cried. The Horn of Jurgen Windcaller could wait another day. Right now, Lydia wanted Marie to just grieve. Adventures would still be there tomorrow. And right now, the right thing was to just hold her sobbing Thane and let her weep.


End file.
